


Photograph

by noxiousSanctity



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst and happy angst, F/M, FUCK, M/M, but not really, dead mom, gone dad, jesus i actually teared up, like the good kind of angst, murder me, parent angst, protective! trish, shit why did I do this to myself.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4738046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxiousSanctity/pseuds/noxiousSanctity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Nero ever talked about his past, It was usually about his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photograph

**Author's Note:**

> LISTEN TO ED SHEERAN- PHOTOGRAPH WHILE READING THIS ULL CRYI PROMSIE IM IN TEARS

If Nero ever talked about his past, it was usually about his mother.

Not anything too clear, just that whenever something nostalgic happened, he would get a faraway look in his eyes and say something like, "I remember my mother liked these cakes." or "My mother said that a lot too." It was apparent that her meaning to him was deeper than any of the others could fathom, and none of them really tried to, because that connection was something only a mother and son could truly feel and hold in their hearts.

But there was still the other side of the coin. Nero's father.

Any time someone tried to bring up the man, Nero shut down, the only thing really alive about him was the pain and rage in his icy blue eyes. Not even Dante had gotten a peep out of him about why he hated the old bastard so much until one night when Trish had taken him out for a while, cigarette perched on her lips as she drove them out to the middle of nowhere at night, stars lighting the sky after a brutal mission. Lady and Dante were with Tiresias, and this gave Trish the perfect time to ask Nero about it.

What she got was not what she expected. She expected a fight, she expected screaming and shouting and things being destroyed, but she found herself with Nero curled up on the pickup truck, watching the sky and dark grey clouds crawl across the sky, seeming so so small. She felt his whole body shudder and shake and fall apart as he let go. She held him against her, not saying anything, just letting him let out everything he could never put into words.

 _Ah_ , she thought. _This is why he never said anything._

After his world stopped tilting and shaking and destroying itself, he told her in a hoarse and bitter voice how his father left. "He left on my birthday." He mumbled into her shoulder, and Trish almost felt tears of rage come to her own eyes. "He said it was the best thing he could have done for me. For us." He wiped his face. "I was five. When he left. Mom... She took it hard. She had to work harder, spend more money on me and barely took care of herself. Slept with more men and used protection, because she couldn't bear to have another one and just have their father dissapear into the fucking dirt." He paused for a moment, and Trish took the moment to run her hand through his snowy hair,feeling him relax into her touch. His mum must have done this for him too.

"She died when I got this." The dull blue of his bringer seemed almost too bright in the view of the constellations, but it refused to dim or yield to it. "That day. It was chaos. I was so busy trying to save Kyrie, I forgot..." He coughed and took another moment to control himself. "I forgot that my mom wasn't invincible, like I always thought she was."  
The rest of that night was spent in silence, watching the stars slide across the sky and tell stories of their own as the two laid on the hood of that battered pickup truck, trying to imagine ways not to think or feel or even breathe. Even that seemed to hurt at the time. Like every breath was forced into them and crushed them every time that it was released.

Nothing ever felt so freeing.

As they drove home, Trish was shown a small, rumpled photograph. The picture was torn at one corner, the head of a man completely severed. Good, she thought bitterly as she took in the woman. She wasn't surprised that she was beautiful. Her hair was just as pure white as her son's, an anomaly that apparently run through the mother's side of the family. Her eyes, however, were a greenish blue hue, like the deepest and most mysterious parts of the ocean. They spoke of untold promises and whispered words of love, and the simple but best kind of happiness.

No wonder the both of them were smiling so happily.

* * *

  
Everything went to shit about a month after that.

Lady had been talking to Dante about just asking Nero on a fucking date already, everyone saw it except himself and the younger hunter, and Dante was dodging bullets (figuratively and literally) while jokingly sidestepping the bigger problem. Nero was sitting on the couch, Tiresias sleeping on his stomach and Trish sitting at the Desk, boots resting on top of the oak square.

The door opened, same as usual. It was a man. Trish looked him up and down, Blonde hair and icy blue eyes resting on a tired face, stubble fresh and nicks just as so, the blood still drying. He strode up to the desk, and in a deep and tired voice, he asked softly, "I'm here to look for my son."

The world seemed to stop for Trish, even her breathing and the man's blinking. Suddenly she noticed the similarities. Blue eyes. Strong Jaw. Broad shoulders. No one else she knew had ice in their irises. This man- this fucking monster- was in their shop. Looking for Nero. "Name?" Her voice had turned to steel, and the man smiled warmly and handed her his identification.

"Aegus. Aegus Alika."

The bullet left her gun before she even realized she'd pulled the trigger.

The man crumpled to the floor, leg bleeding profusely and his whole body shaking and shuddering in pain. "Wh-Why did you shoot me?" He looked up at her, anger and confusion battling across his face. "What did I do?"

"You know what you fucking did." Her voice was flat, cold and curt. She stepped around the desk and stood next to him, feeling like she wasn't really in control of her body anymore. Her gun raised, and her mouth formed words she never remembered thinking. "Repent."

Suddenly she was thrown away from the man, Lady covering her with her own body. "Trish!" She shouted, wrestling the gun away from the blonde as she tried to aim again at the man now being helped up from the ground by a very alarmed Dante. "Stop it! Who is this?!?" The brunette  turned to look at the man, who looked scared out of his mind and tried to hide it. "Is this man someone you know."

Trish relaxed and Lady let her stand up but without her guns. Her hands seemed to twitch without the familiar weight of them in her hands, and she barely kept back the snarl of "A fucking monster who doesn't deserve his name. Aegis means protector, and  you're certainly anything but."

"Please..." He said softly, real regret and pain in his sincere eyes. He pulled out a photograph, old and yellowed with age and curled from being looked at often. Trish heard Lady suck in a breath and Dante just stop breathing entirely. That was the same photo Nero had.

"Dad?"

They all turned around at the sound of Nero's voice, quiet in surprise. He was standing there with Tiresias in his arm, still sleeping thankfully. He seemed like he was five years old again, and his dad just said he was leaving. "What are you doing here?"

"Nero." His dad relaxed, but the guilt in his appearance only seemed to grow. "I want to talk to you." He didn't make a move to step towards Nero, and if he had Trish would have beat him to death with his own fucking leg. "It's important."

"Why?" Still calm. Still normal. What was going on? "If it's that important, you can tell all of us. All of us. This is my family." Nero's hand tightened around Tiresias, and Aegus took a deep breath and pulled out two letters from his worn trench coat, one yellowed and one newer. He put one on the desk.

"Your mother, Althea, sent me this while I was working in a different country, when you were six." Nero's eyes widened slightly, but he stayed calm. "It was divorce papers." Aegus took a shaky breath, the bags under his eyes even darker. "Your mother asked me for a divorce, because she knew what I was. What I gave you. Do you understand?" He looked at Nero's bringer, and naturally the younger hid it behind him, genuine fear in his eyes. "I'm the parent who gave you your demonic capabilities. She was scared my being there would hurt you. I-" His voice cracked. "I didn't want to go. I promise. I wanted to watch you grow up and see you do all the things you ever wanted to do. But she was scared, and I didn't want her to be. And I left."

The whole room was dead quiet as he placed the second letter, newer and white on the desk too. "I received this a year ago. A friend of mine sent it to me, telling me that you were a hero, but got kicked out of that terrible fucking city." Anger barely kept itself out of his tone, but he carried on. "He also told me your mother died, and I felt something die inside of me too." He looked down at his still bleeding leg, it healing slowly. "But you were alive, so I still had hope.

"I went back to the city and tried to find you only to realize you had left. Still, I looked, and here I am." He looked at Nero, who looked like he wasn't sure if he was going to punch Aegus or hug him. "I don't know if you believe me, but that's okay. You're happy, and that's all I ever wanted for you." He nodded his head at Trish, Lady and Dante. "Thank you for taking care of him. I'm going to go now." And with another small smile, he walked back out the door like nothing happened.

But Nero wouldn't let it end like that.

"Dad!" He gave Tiresias to Dante, rushing out the door after grabbing the letters and opening them. The three others watched through the window, surprise and worry on all their faces as the two conversed on the street, Nero looking more and more red eyed and happy as the seconds went by, and soon he hugged a very startled then happy lost father in the middle of a street in a shady city, and nothing could have been more perfect.

* * *

  
"Aegus."

The old man was sitting on the steps and looked up at Trish, who was at the top by the door. He smiled at her as if he hadn't just been shot by her that morning. "Hello. Would you like to talk?"

She nodded and sat down next to him, cigarette resting on her lip once again. The silence was long, but neither felt the need to break it until Trish said softly, "Was it all true?"  
"I loved his mother." He replied, the warmth on his face confirming such. "I loved her so much that if she wanted me gone for our son to have a chance at a normal life, I would leave." He smiled at the other before staring at the street again. "I just wish I had had a chance to say goodbye to her before her death."

"Nero said she died on his birthday." At his look of distress, she sighed. "Apparently there was an attack, and he forgot she couldn't take care of herself."  
"I'm so sorry he had to deal with that. Me not being there made it worse." He buried his head in his hands and sighed. "I wish I could fix it." Lifting his head, wise eyes connected with hers. "But then, would he have such a family as you guys?"

Trish huffed a little laugh. She'd let him live. But if he broke Nero's heart...

Those are thoughts for another day.

"Are Nero and Dante... Together?"

She blinked. "Uh?"

He looked a little red as he looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm not saying that it'd be bad if he were gay, I just felt like there was... something?" He looked back at her. "Am I wrong?"

"No, you're not off the mark." She laughed. "They just don't know it yet."

"Ah." He chuckled and rolled his eyes, crinkles around them revealing themselves. "I hope they figure it out soon. Nero needs someone special like that. He deserves it anyway."

Trish smiled and nodded, looking up at hidden constellations with stories now told.

"Yeah."

**Author's Note:**

> Aegus-Protector  
> Alika- Guardian  
> Althea-Healing
> 
> CRIES INTO PILLOW COMMENT PLAEASE


End file.
